'Guns and Roses'

I am unsure of how to write this post. This is my third draft in as many as five days. You would think that I am about to reveal the plot of my first book! Sadly, it is nothing that remarkable. It’s not something I am remotely proud of. But dramatic it is. A friend has let me down. I invest a lot in my relationships, whatever be their nature. I am one of those people who need to be convinced a great deal of a person’s worth before I start investing my time, money or energy in them. But once convinced, once you are a friend, I invest my everything. And therefore in my case it is a colossal loss to give up a friend, but one that I am prepared for. Simply because a week of sleepless nights is enough punishment and remorse for a crime I didn’t commit. For a sin about which I was in the dark all along.

This is the story of a man who abhors the idea of being tied down in a committed relationship. He is a no strings-attached man. Fair enough, wouldn’t you say? Yes, absolutely fair as long as he is honest about it. Not just with himself but also with the women in his life.

Yes, because our man here is fond of women...let there be no doubt about that. He is a charmer, he is suave, he is funny, he can talk, he can listen, he can be enormously polished, but it is his remarkable earthiness that captures your heart and mind. And he knows the rule of thumb every man needs to know before he sets his eyes and expectations on a woman...he needs to listen. And that’s what our man is. He is an attentive listener. There! Half the battle already won. And the next half of the battle is also under his control. What does that involve? Taking a genuine interest in the woman’s life and all that she is up to. And our fellow here does that too with perfection. Again, justifiable if there was only one woman at a time. But what if there were actually more? Say about three? Or what about four? Or even more? And all at the same time? Each having been made to believe that “no, we are not in an emotionally committed relationship” but at the same time “we are in a monogamous, single partner equation”. Otherwise why wouldn’t he tell them about the simultaneous existence of the others in his life? Why would he deny even when asked?

Fortunately, the boundaries of his and mine relationship were rather well-etched right from the beginning. And so the heartbreak is not of the same nature as some others that he has caused but I share the same sense of betrayal... as a woman, and as a friend. In fact at some level my loss is greater than some of the others’. He was a close friend, and he let me down. I don’t know whether I even want to confront him simply because, as a woman it is demeaning to be associated with a man like this, against whom the stack of damning evidence is growing sky high every moment. If he continues to remain in my circle, that means I am endorsing him. I am tacitly telling the world that this is my friend. You have my certificate that this is a good man. And that's not possible anymore. He has hurt too many people, some of whom are close friends too, he has been the cause of too many tears. And no man, no matter how dear his friendship might be, can be allowed to treat women, so many of them, like mere playthings. A predator can never be an ally.

I want to tell each of those women that there is a silver lining behind this too. As my biologist roommate has informed me, men who fool around a lot more than they should, that is, they exercise certain muscles a lot more than they ought to, suffer from its dysfunction from the age of thirty-five years itself. So, rejoice ladies! In “our” man’s case, a lifetime of humiliation is less than ten years away.